1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape driving apparatus and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a driving apparatus capable of recording/reproducing digital data with respect to a magnetic tape, the so-called tape streaming drive is known. Such a tape streaming drive can have huge recording capacity of, for example, several tens to several hundreds gigabytes although depending upon the tape length of the tape cassette as a medium. Thus, the tape streaming drive is widely used for, for example, backing up data recorded on a medium such as a hard disk of a computer main body. Besides, the tape streaming drive is suitable also in the case where it is used for storing picture data, etc. of large data size.
As the foregoing tape streaming drive, there has been proposed such a tape streaming drive that a tape cassette of a 8 mm VTR is used as a recording medium, and recording/reproduction of data is carried out by employing a helical scan system with a recording head and a reproducing head provided at a required position of a rotary drum.
In the foregoing tape streaming drive using the tape cassette of the 8 mm VTR, for example, SCIS (Small Computer System Interface) is used as the input/output interface for recording/reproduction data.
At the time of recording, data supplied from, for example, a host computer are inputted through the SCSI interface, and the input data are subjected to predetermined compression processing and encoding processing and are recorded to the magnetic tape of the tape cassette.
At the time of reproduction, data of the magnetic tape are read out and are subjected to necessary decoding processing, and are transmitted to the host computer through the SCSI interface.
As the magnetic tape, one having a considerable length is required to obtain large capacity. Thus, recording/reproduction using such a long magnetic tape as a recording medium is carried out after movement to a desired position on the magnetic tape. Then, in the case where the tape cassette is ejected from the tape streaming drive, after movement is made toward an ejection management area formed in the vicinity of the position where the recording/reproduction has been carried out, the ejecting operation is carried out. Further, when the tape cassette is loaded into the tape streaming drive, movement is made from the ejection management area at the time of the ejection to a desired position where the recording/reproduction is carried out. That is, since the ejection position becomes coincident with the loading position, it becomes suitable for the case where the recording/reproduction is carried out by again using the previously used recording area.
However, in this case, in the tape cassette, the magnetic tape is kept, for example, for a long period in the state where the magnetic tape is led out from a reel hub, that is, the recording surface is exposed. Thus, there is a case where the recording surface is deteriorated by moisture or the like.
Besides, in the case where the magnetic tape is rewound to the vicinity of the head at the time of ejection of the tape cassette for the purpose of protecting the recording surface of the magnetic tape, in order to carry out the recording/reproduction at, for example, the physical center portion or end portion of the magnetic tape after the subsequent loading of the tape cassette, it is necessary to move the recording/reproduction position to a desired position by running the tape from the head. If the length of the tape is long, this requires large time.
Thus, such a tape driving apparatus has been required that it becomes possible to select the ejection position of the magnetic tape optimum for use in, for example, the tape cassette, so that the tape cassette becomes easy to handle and the storage property is improved.
The present invention has been made to solve the foregoing problem and provides a tape driving apparatus comprising tape drive means for running a magnetic tape when a tape cassette containing the magnetic tape is loaded and for carrying out recording or reproduction of information with respect to the magnetic tape; memory drive means for, in a case where a memory to record management information for managing recording or reproduction with respect to the magnetic tape of the loaded tape cassette is provided, reading or writing the management information by carrying out necessary communication processing to the memory; ejection information detecting means for detecting ejection position information specifying one of a plurality of ejection management areas formed on the magnetic tape from the memory; ejection management area search means for moving the magnetic tape to the specific ejection management area based on the ejection position information by running the magnetic tape in a case where the tape cassette is ejected; and ejection control means for ejecting the tape cassette in a case where the magnetic tape is moved to the specific ejection management area by the ejection management area search means.
Moreover, a recording medium comprises a tape cassette housing a magnetic tape, and a memory which is provided at the tape cassette and records management information for managing recording or reproduction with respect to the magnetic tape, in which a plurality of ejection management areas are formed on the magnetic tape, and the memory stores ejection position information to indicate a specific ejection management area among the plurality of ejection management areas.
According to the tape driving apparatus of the invention, since the position of the magnetic tape can be made the specific ejection management area in the case where the tape cassette is ejected, it becomes possible to select the ejection position of the magnetic tape.
Besides, in the recording medium of the invention, since the ejection position information is stored in the memory (MIC), it becomes possible to supply the ejection position information to the tape driving apparatus in which the recording medium is loaded.